Appeals Court Rules No Transparency On Pentagon's Top Contractors

ASBL Ninth Circuit Case Against Pentagon

The American Small Business League
January 10, 2017

PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired
- January 10, 2017) - The San Francisco 9th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the American Small Business League's (ASBL) Freedom Of Information Act Request (FOIA)
case against the Pentagon on 01/06/2017. The Pentagon appealed the case after
they lost in the Federal district court of San Francisco following the ruling
that Sikorsky Aviation Corporation disclose their most recent subcontracting
plan submitted to the Pentagon's Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program
(CSPTP).

The ASBL originally won their FOIA case against the
Pentagon in November
of 2014. Federal District Court Judge William Alsup ordered the Pentagon to
release the Sikorsky data to the ASBL after reviewing the information and
deducing nothing in the
report constituted as trade secret, proprietary or confidential financial
information.

By seeking disclosure of Sikorsky Aviation Corporation's
participation in the CSPTP, the ASBL sought to reveal evidence that the program
allowed the Pentagon's largest prime contractors to circumvent small business
subcontracting goals without penalty, costing small businesses trillions of
dollars.

During the District Court case, Judge Alsup instructed
the Pentagon and Sikorsky on two separate occasions to "highlight
the parts that are supposedly confidential" or that they believed were
proprietary and explain why they believed the information should be exempt. The
Pentagon declined to comply with Judge Alsup's request.

Despite the 9th
Circuit Court having never seen the documents on which Judge Alsup based his
verdict, the Court of Appeals overruled Judge Alsup in favor of Sikorsky,
rendering Sikorsky exempt from having to provide proof of compliance with
federal contracting law while participating in the CSPTP.

"This is a landmark decision," said ASBL
President Lloyd Chapman. "With this ruling the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals eliminated all transparency regarding how the Pentagon's top
contractors have spent trillions of our tax dollars over the last 27 years. The
ASBL is already working on appealing this case."